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'Bionic man' goes on show at UK museum

A "bionic man" that costs $US1 million has gone on display at Britain's Science Museum, complete with artificial organs, synthetic blood and robot limbs.

Named Rex, which is short for "Robotic Exoskeleton", the 6'6 (two metre) humanoid with its uncannily life-like face was assembled by leading roboticists for a television program.

Although cheaper than the Six Million Dollar Man made famous by the cult 1970s television series starring Lee Majors, the technology is far advanced from the fictional bionics on show back then.

"We can build a body that is great and beautiful in its own special way" ... Bertolt Meyer, pictured with Rex.

The creation includes key advances in prosthetic technology, as well as an artificial pancreas, kidney, spleen and trachea and a functional blood circulatory system.

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Welcoming Rex to the museum in London on Tuesday was Swiss social psychologist Bertolt Meyer, who was himself born without a left hand and has a sophisticated bionic replacement.

"I've looked around for new bionic technologies, out of personal interest, for a very long time and I think that until five or six years ago nothing much was happening," Meyer said.

"Then suddenly we are now at a point where we can build a body that is great and beautiful in its own special way."

The museum exhibit, which opens to the public on Thursday, will explore changing perceptions of human identity against the background of rapid progress in bionics – although Rex is not strictly bionic as he does not include living tissue.